


Lupercalia

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Roman, Angst, Bondage, Dubious Consent, F/F, Frottage, Gender Issues, Master/Slave, Oral Sex, Power Dynamics, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 03:52:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: They are Romans, they are all meant to be sons of the wolf. And yet, this Celtic slave has more wolf in her than any Roman she's ever met.





	Lupercalia

**Author's Note:**

> For Femslash February, I looked up the origin of the name "February". It dates to a Roman festival, also known as Lupercalia, and well, this ensued.

The wine pours into her glass and she smiles politely at the new girl, willowy and copper-haired, who also smiles hollowly but stays as silent as marble. Across the table Viserys talks animatedly about his day in the Senate, the men three times his age who do not pay him respect, and Dany nods. She observes her brother's ranting, absorbs it, but she's long since learned he does not care for her advice. She should learn to obey, as he is always trying to teach her.

There is little point to listening to him, and so she lets her eye dwell on their slave a second longer than she ought to – her graceful poise, her Celtic skin. There is a terrible sadness in the girl, as there is in most slaves, but it hits her more strongly this time.

“Sister,” Viserys reprimands her, dragging her attention back to him. “You ought to learn what deserves your attention.”

She says nothing, her eyes falling back onto her plate. All the while, their slaves stand around waiting to serve.

She pretends their eyes don't make her want to crawl under the table and hide.

* * *

She does not sleep well, she never has. Viserys has gone to oh so many apothecaries and astrologers to try and find a solution, but none of them have helped. She cannot sleep when she doesn't feel like she's alone, and she never feels like she's alone.

In the dead of the night, tired of tossing and turning against silk sheets ( _all the way from China,_ Viserys has been known to gloat whenever they have visitors), she rises in the dead of the night. The moon is full tonight, it's easy enough to see.

She does not dare venture outside her room; Viserys worries so much about her reputation – their family name is still scorched by what happened to their parents, and Viserys has put all his heart and soul into restoring it. He will not let her ruin his efforts. Wandering the streets at night would do just that, and so she stays obediently confined.

If she stands on her toes and peers through her window, she can just about see the slaves' quarters. They too, like all the gods' creatures, need to sleep and shit somewhere. She feels a deep unease. _You are too soft on them,_ Viserys is always telling her. _If the gods did not mean them to be slaves, their parents would have been better warriors._ That argument has never sat well with her, but she doesn't know why. So she nods and goes along with it, praying to whichever god will tell her why having another woman pour her drinks, make her bed, clean her chamberpot makes her feel so cold inside.

She wonders about their new slave, the Celtic one, with her white skin and red hair – how does she sleep? Has she grown used to being crowded in with the others, like cattle? Do Celts all sleep in the one room, like savages? Viserys would say as much.

With a sigh, she folds her fingers through her hair. She ought to sleep. Viserys means to go to market tomorrow, before the festival.

* * *

They get attention as they walk through the streets. Viserys insisted on bringing their new slave with them – to show her off, of course. It can't be denied she gets attention, taller than any Roman woman, ice white and flame-haired. She looks foreign, and that earns strangers' eyes.

(Viserys must have some German blood, with his blond locks, but when she tried to tell him that, he shouted. _Are you calling me a barbarian?!_ And she cringed away, never pointing out that she was as much a barbarian as he.)

The girl – Helena, Viserys has taken to calling her, for her beauty, and to remind her she is lucky to be just a house slave, and not sold to a brothel somewhere (it's awful that her brother would say such a thing, if only by implication) – trails close behind her, bowing her head. Shopkeepers and customers whistle at her as they go, always excited by something new. She feels the tremble of utter terror behind her, the girl's Latin still not good enough to comprehend the crude remarks aimed at her.

Instinctively, she reaches behind her and takes poor Helena's hand. “It's alright,” she says. “I won't let them hurt you.”

She doubts Helena will understand that either, but the girl's fingers intertwine with hers eagerly. “Thank you.” Because those are the first words they always teach them. “My lady.”

She has never felt less like anyone's lady, trailing behind her brother. He wants a new tunic for the Februa – not a toga, the toga is much too heavy to wear to such a thing, but something fine that will tell the city that he too is fine. Viserys is afraid, if they are not always the image of what a Roman citizen should be, they will be destroyed. Like Mother and Father.

She watches as Viserys haggles his way into his new linen garment, for they no longer have the money he likes to act as though they have, and Helena keeps fingers enmeshed with hers. She does not know why, but she offers herself, willing to be the one thing this poor girl in a foreign land has to hold onto.

* * *

That night, before she goes to bed, Helena comes to brush her hair for her. Despite her discomfort, her certainty that the slave girl must be able to see right through her, she can't help but sink into the sensation of the brush running through her hair. She longs to be touched gently – greedy as that may be.

“Your name,” Helena whispers as she brushes hair. “My lady – what is your name?”

She pauses. “Targarya,” she says softly, because that _is_ her name.

“...No,” says Helena. She's been taught better. “Family name, yes,” she says, “but _your_ name?”

She hates the lump in her throat then. “That's the only name I have.” She has no sisters, and even if she did, she's nineteen years old, well past the point Viserys could have married her off (he's still waiting for the perfect match though. _I'll be an old maid before he makes his mind up,_ she thinks, and does that leave her bitter, or relieved?) – why does this bother her so?

The slave girl is silent for a long, painful moment, until she speaks again. “...Sansa.” And Targarya looks up, puzzled. “That was my name. Before...”

She trails off, and Targarya's heart aches for her. She is afraid: she knows what could happen to a slave who dared say such a thing, who remembered they had a life before Rome got ahold of them, who said as much to their masters. _They'll do better as slaves in Rome than kings anywhere else,_ Viserys is always saying, but Targarya – if that's her fucking name – isn't sure she believes it. “...I see,” she says softly, because this barbarian slave – this beautiful, sweet girl that she and her brother do not deserve – _has a name_ , and somehow, this girl knows she will not suffer for saying as much.

Sansa bows her head. “Forgive me, my lady,” she says. “Good night.”

Then she goes, and leaves Targarya to sleep as worse than ever.

* * *

She's clever, this Sansa – Targarya must remember not to refer to her as that out loud, but now she knows it, she cannot think of the girl as anything else – barely a month after they purchase her, her Latin is near-perfect. Viserys' friends' wives giggle about how cute her little Celtic accent is, and Targarya has to smile and nod and pretend she doesn't want to tear their eyes out.

The Februa draws ever near her, and Viserys goes on about it. “They say it's meant to purge the city,” she says as Sansa brushes her hair one night, because her brother is a bad influence on her. “Like sweating out a fever.” She isn't sure she believes that though. They do this every year, and yet Rome itself remains as hot and sordid as ever.

She knows she shouldn't, but she has a curious nature, she cannot deny that. “Do they have festivals like this in Britannia?”

A pause. “Yes.” She looks up, and sees Sansa's eyes fallen to the floor. “Many.” Targarya can see in her eyes, she still does not have the words to explain them all.

She looks away. “Nevermind. I shouldn't have asked.” _They are barbarians,_ Viserys is always telling her. _Better to be slaves in Rome than kings anywhere else._ She would like to believe that. It would make her life easier. And yet...

“My mother always loved festivals,” Sansa whispers. “She'd take such pride. She'd dress us up in all our jewellery and the whole town would crowd around...”

She cannot help but think about the words. “You were well known, then?” she asks.

Sansa nods. “I was a princess.” _Oh._ Targarya's heart plummets through her chest. _There are no kings in Rome,_ and she was always taught that was why they are better than any other nation, but she isn't sure – what does it mean to not have kings if you still have slaves? “My father – king in the north, and my mother, sent from the south to marry him...”

 _They are barbarians,_ Viserys always says, but making marriage alliances does not sound much like a barbarian to her. Sansa's voice starts to waver. “My mother, she said she'd rather kill us than let you take us away – but she couldn't.” She cannot hide the tears now. “But she couldn't. She had the knife in her hand, but... she couldn't kill her babies.” A shudder. “My brothers and sister fled, I don't know where – but I, I wasn't strong enough–”

“No.”

Sansa jumps, and Targarya, surprising herself, grabs the girl by the wrist. “This is not your fault.” _Your grace,_ she almost wants to add.

There is a flicker of fear in Sansa's eyes, and she feels a wave of guilt. Of course, when she started like that, the girl must have thought she'd be punished – that is what most masters would do to a slave who spoke like that.

“My lady.” She extracts herself so subtly, not even the harshest of masters could accuse her of impertinence. It's admirable, in a deeply sad way. “Forgive me.”

It is not her who needs to be forgiven, but Targarya nods and lets her go. After that, she raises her looking glass and stares at her neatly combed her. She wants to run her fingers through and mess it all up again. She wants to dress and mud and skins, like a savage, she wants to run to the slaves' chambers and throw herself at their feet. She wants to tell Sansa – this beautiful, clever, graceful girl, this _princess_ – that no, she is no better than her.

* * *

On the fourteenth, Viserys sits down to dinner with her, and he says: “I wanted to talk to you.”

She stops with pork halfway to her mouth. She has learned by now, it is never a good sign when he tells her that.

“What about?” she asks, swallowing her meat. Their slaves stand around, including Sansa, and Targarya somehow instinctively wants to look back at her for support, but she knows that's a bad idea.

“The slaves,” Viserys tells her, and of course it is. What else could it possibly be? “You're getting too close to them.”

Silence. “I don't know what you mean,” she whispers, though of course she does.

“You're getting too close to _her_.” Viserys' eyes fly across the room, and Sansa stands, put into the centre of things. The rest of the slaves eye her suspiciously, afraid they will have to suffer for whatever _she_ – the new girl, the foreigner, for most of them have never met a Briton before – has done. _This isn't her fault,_ Targarya thinks, but she bites her tongue. Whatever she says, Viserys can only do so much to her – she is his sister, his last living female relative; she is a valuable commodity, and he knows that. Sansa, however, he could do anything he liked to her.

The girl was a princess in another life, but here, she is utterly disposable. The only one who'll fight to keep Sansa is _her_.

“She'll get unruly, unreliable,” Viserys continues. “And I won't have it said that I can't control my household.”

Targarya swallows. Of course not. Viserys would never let anyone think that – he tries so hard to be model of propriety, the perfect Roman citizen. She should be grateful _he_ hasn't thought to go after Sansa, for her beauty, but he has always been oh so careful about dalliances with the slaves, lest anyone think him a beastly young man, in thrall to nothing but his libido.

Viserys still thinks that if Father had only tried harder, been a better Roman, they wouldn't have killed him, Mother wouldn't have have died birthing her, and he wouldn't have had to work his way back up the cursus honorum from the bottom.

Of of the corner of her eye, she spots Sansa biting her lip in fear, and she feels she has to say something. “Sansa has been nothing but obedient–”

“Helena!”

She stops. Of course, the girl's name is not Sansa, not anymore – how could she have been so stupid as to forget that? She bows her head to her dinnerplate in defeat. _He'll have her sold,_ she thinks. This has happened before. There was Irri when she was a child, who held her when she cried about not being allowed out to play with the boys, and there was Doreah when she was a youth, who taught her what was what between her legs. Viserys sold them both not long after. He would get rid of anyone who might make less his property.

This time, however, he has a different plan. “You need a husband,” he declares.

Of course. She's almost twenty now, long past the point he should have married her off – the only reason it's taken so long is Viserys cannot decide what man is worthy of being his brother-in-law.

“If that's what you think is best, brother,” she whispers, because what can she do about that?

* * *

It is the day of the Februa, and so she is alone in the house – of course, she is never truly alone in the house; the slaves hustle and bustle throughout, cooking and cleaning and working, all day, every day. She feels such a useless, weak thing when they do that. She would like to take the burden from them, somehow, but nobody ever taught her to clean and cook. As Viserys would tell her, she is a Roman lady, and such hard, demeaning, useful work would be beneath her.

And then there is Sansa, who should be just another slave, but of course never is. Tagarya tries to write a letter to fill the hours, but she keeps getting distracted. Footsteps come to her door and then away again, leaving her on edge. _What is it?_ she wants to shout as the knock she's waiting for does not come. How is she meant to fill her mind like this?

After the fifth or sixth time this happens, she rises from her bed, striding over to open the door.

Halfway down the corridor, she spots Sansa, that brilliant red hair a dead giveaway, making a hasty retreat.

Immediately, her annoyance disappears into vapour. “Sansa?” she calls, and the girl stops. “Is something the matter?”

The girl turns round, her head bowed submissively. “Oh no, my lady. There's no problem.”

Targarya soon realises. _She wanted to see me,_ but of course no slave would be so foolish as to interrupt their master just because they wanted to see them. “Come in,” she says, beckoning. After all, Sansa cannot refuse a direct order.

Sansa follows her into the room and Targarya quickly closes the door behind her, giving them both some privacy. The girl still looks uncomfortable, and Targarya, despite knowing Sansa is already several inches taller than her, takes a seat on the bed to make herself seem smaller. “What did you want to talk about?” she asks, not-quite-casual.

With averted eyes and a nervous look, the girl matches her not-quite-casualness. “Your brother wants you married off,” she says.

Targarya nods and sighs sadly. “He does,” she says. “Really, I'm long past old enough. If he doesn't do it soon, people will start thinking there's something wrong with me.” And Viserys would never allow that – it would reflect badly on him.

Sansa tilts her head to the side curiously. “Do you want to be married?”

She can't help but snort bitterly. “What I want has nothing to do with it,” she says, and she's not quite sure she fully understood that until she said it aloud.

“You Roman women,” says Sansa, taking a seat – forgetting herself for a moment. “They treat you horribly.”

And Targarya looks up at her, biting her lips. “Did they treat you Celts any better?” she asks, because this cannot be so abnormal. Can it?

“Well, we got our own names at least.”

After a moment, she breaks into giggles, covering her face to keep herself under control. Once Sansa says it like that, it does seem so _absurd_ , the thought she does not have her own name – if her parents had lived long enough to give her sisters, would they all be called the same thing? Would they number them to keep track? She does not know.

While she is giggling, Sansa reaches forward slowly, braver than any slave ought to be. “They will not let me go with you,” she says, folding her fingers into Targarya's. “Will they?”

She shakes her head. No, of course not. Sansa might be a family slave, but Viserys _is_ the family, she knows that. And he may allow her to take a few of their slaves with her – if she'd want to – but none she cares for. She's never thought of her brother as particularly smart, but he's smarter than that.

Sansa's grip tightens. “I'll miss you,” she says.

She looks up, and meets this girl's eyes. There is a hint of fear behind them, to reveal herself so much, but she will not back down. Right now, Viserys will be having the blood of a sacrificed goat poured on his face by the priests, the luperci, the sons of the wolf.

Sons of the wolf. They are Romans, they are all meant to be sons of the wolf. And yet, this Celtic slave has more wolf in her than any Roman she's ever met.

She bites her lip, suddenly remembering who she is to this girl, how awful and obscene it is that Sansa should feel the need to _miss_ her. “Why should you miss me?” she asks. “I am only your m–”

But her words are cut off by the sudden press of lips upon her own. She gasps, softly. _You would dare?_ she wonders, but perhaps she really has proved she isn't going to hurt this girl. She wants to kiss her, dear gods she does. Sansa's lips are soft and sweet; she feels as if they could kiss forever. Targarya hasn't the faintest idea what she's doing. She hardly knew two women could do such a thing. _A desire known to no-one, freakish, novel,_ she's heard Viserys say, quoting one Greek book or other, but she never quite believed it. She believes it even less now.

But an ugly feeling surfaces at the back of her mind, and eventually, she forces herself to push the girl away. “Sansa!”

And Sansa pulls away, as if scalded. “F-forgive me, my lady,” she says, she voice wavering. “I-I wouldn't – I only thought–”

“It's quite alright,” she is quick to reassure when she realises why Sansa is so afraid: she just made an advance her master did not welcome, and with anyone else she might die for that. “I won't hurt you, not – not for a kiss.” Sansa looks a little puzzled, and Targarya feels hysteria creep into her throat. “But that's the problem, isn't it?” she asks, with half a laugh. Sansa does not look any less puzzled. “I want to _fuck_ you, Sansa, so badly.” She, again, did not quite know that until she said it. She hardly even knows what that means. Doreah taught her what it would mean for a man to fuck her, one day, but not... “But how can I?” she asks. “I _own_ you. How can I fuck you if I could have you killed if you said no? How would I live with that?”

She hardly knows what she's saying. Sansa is a slave, and she does not know she knows anyone, man or woman, in all of Rome who would be so reluctant to fuck a slave. Slaves are slaves; they lost in battle, and now their fate is to be used for whatever purpose their masters see fit – sex as much as anything else. But Targarya finds she hates it, the whole concept. She doesn't know why. But she would rather crawl to Sansa on her hands and knees, in chains, than pull the girl to her.

Sansa takes a moment to follow her words, nodding slowly, before she gulps hard. “You have always been kind,” she says. “Gentle. And you are beautiful, my lady – so, so beautiful.” The words slip from between her lips like she can hardly keep them back. “I would want to fuck you no matter who you were,” she says, and Targarya blushes. The words are sweet, but are they true? Sansa raises an eyebrow. “Is it fair, that I should go untouched the rest of my life – because of what your people did to me?”

She swallows. No, that isn't fair – that she should want this girl, and this girl, it seems, wants her, but she should push her away because of what she is. Sansa, for her beauty, may not go untouched the rest of her life – if Viserys sold her away, Targarya shudders to think of what might happen. Maybe Sansa only wants to make the inevitable slightly less horrific, but somehow, she does not believe that.

Targarya is torn between her want and her duty, neither of which she fully understands. As a thousand swirling thought circle through her brain, one takes concrete form: “Wait here,” she says. And Sansa nods.

* * *

Leather, they are. The same goatskin the priests will form into straps tonight, for the men to run through the city slapping women with, women who crave to get pregnant, to bear their husbands sons, as any proper Roman lady should. Targarya should be out there with them, long since wed and popping out heirs, securing the Targaryen legacy, but that is simply not what she wants – although she has no idea what she does want.

Apart from one thing.

Sansa looks even more confused when Targarya tosses the leather into her hands. _Perhaps she's afraid,_ she thinks, and trying to reassure, she all but tears her tunic off, leaving herself stark naked. She does not care to be shy about it. She lies back upon her mattress, while Sansa's eyes look over her – she doesn't hide her appreciation, but she still does not fully understand. “Tie me to the bed,” Targarya tells her. “Tie me up, and have your way with me.”

This is a terrible idea. Men dally with their slaves all the time – but they are always so careful to always be in control. Women, perhaps do too, but usually with men, and she can't imagine any of Viserys' friends' wives letting one of them shackle them like this. _Viserys will kill me if he finds out,_ she thinks, but somehow, the idea just makes her laugh. It makes her feel as if she has a secret, a part of her life that does not belong to him.

Sansa does not need telling twice, which surprises her, possibly. Her eyes sparkle and she bites her soft pink lip to repress a grin as she leashes the restrains around Targarya's wrists. She has thought of this before – Targarya doubts she's actually done this before, for the girl looks a little younger than her, though she's not sure by how much – but she has thought about it.

Targarya does not know what she's expecting. She tries to remembers Doreah's lessons, and can only bring up the part about a cock, thick, brutish and awful, bursting into her. Sansa strips her cheap fabric off quickly, making Targarya whimper in need – but it doesn't reveal one of _those_ , certainly.

She gasps as those pink lips make their way across her body, trailing across her breasts and belly. Sansa seems to be in no hurry. She whimpers, arching her body upwards, but Sansa's soft fingers simply grab her hips and hold her down. The girl whispers something Targarya doesn't understand, perhaps in the Britannic tongue she has had no need of for months now, into the skin of her navel. Whatever it is, it goes right through her, like lightning sent by Jove himself, and it leaves her gasping.

When Sansa's mouth moves down between her legs, it leaves her startled. _Oh,_ she realises. _So that's what she can do._ She does not know if these Celts know other women's bodies better, or if they simply know their own bodies better, but it doesn't seem to matter, as Sansa's tongue delves into her slit, kissing, sucking and licking, until she does not know which way is up anymore. Targarya tugs against her bonds, but they hold firm, and she whines, wrapping her thighs around Sansa's neck.

Perhaps it should not excite her, being tied up and taken like this – such things are for whores, she's sure Viserys would say. But she gets a thrill out of it, the thought she has broken his rules: all the people she must always be better than, and all the people she must always be worse than. Right now, she is being fucked like a whore by a _slave_ , a woman slave at that, because she no longer cares what she does to his damn reputation.

She cannot say how long it takes, having those lips against her before she wails helplessly, spasming as the pleasure descend upon her. Sansa does not let up for a moment, though her eyes open, blue and shining. _This girl will be the death of me,_ she thinks, but men have died for worse things. Sansa's tongue does not leave her until she's shuddering, until the leather feels tight around her wrists.

It would be easy enough for Sansa to demand the same thing of her, to make her way up the bed and just sit upon her face, and maybe that's what she's hoping for – but she does not go that far, instead pressing their cunts together, pulling one of Targarya's legs up to make it easier. She does not bother to ask what Sansa's doing, instead just biting her lip to smother the noises of not-quite-pain, not-quite-pleasure. She just feels _overwhelmed_ , which is exactly what she wanted this girl to do to her.

Sansa gasps and moans as she grinds, a fricatrix to put Sappho herself to shame. She peaks with a beautiful cry, musical, almost. Targarya, despite how little there is left in her, keens toward it as she does, trying to make it better. And as she comes down, Sansa laughs. It's a pretty laugh, joyful. It sounds like she hasn't a care in the world. _I'm glad she's happy,_ thinks Targarya, and with that she passes out.

* * *

When she comes to, she is still in her leather bondage, but Sansa is wiping the sweat from her brow delicately. She chuckles, uncomfortable. “You don't have to clean me,” she says. “While we're like this, I – I am not your mistress.”

“This isn't because you're my mistress,” Sansa tells her, without missing a beat. “This is because you have a lovely face, and I'd like to touch it while I can.”

That throws her for a second, and she looks up, observing the faint red marks beneath the straps. They're not that deep, they probably won't bruise properly. But they are there. For now, they are there, and she wants to hang on to that moment as long as she can.

While she's distracted, Sansa leans over and nips one of her nipples, making her gasp. “Sansa!”

Sansa giggles, girlishly, and pulls her head back up. “Is something the matter, my lady?”

It is all so easy. All except those last couple of words, that remind her of the truth of the matter – what she still is. She winces.

“Sansa,” she says, serious, and the girl looks up, meeting her eye. Her eyes are bright blue, and cold. The make Targarya think of the Northern winter snows she hears tales of.

“...What is my name?” she asks.

And Sansa takes a moment to look her over, from head to toe, absorbing everything she can of the woman who has been her mistress these past few months. “Dany,” she concludes.

Dany doesn't know what that means. It could be anything: an old friend, or lover, a slave name she heard somewhere, an insult, a Celtic song, anything – but it doesn't matter. It is the name Sansa just gave her. It's the only name she's ever had that is hers and hers alone, and she takes it with both hands. It is the Februa, and the city is meant to be purged today: reborn, made anew. Dany isn't so sure it is, but perhaps,  _she_ can be.

“Alright,” she says. “I am Dany.” She bites her lip. “And I am yours.”

Sansa smiles again, and leans over to kiss her lips this time. Before she does, she whispers one last thing.

“I knew we'd win in the end.”


End file.
